10.5061/DRYAD.FS798
Matias, Miguel G.
Imperial College London
University of Évora
Pereira, Cátia Lúcio
University of Évora
Raposeiro, Pedro Miguel
University of the Azores
Gonçalves, Vítor
University of the Azores
Cruz, Ana Mafalda
University of the Azores
Costa, Ana Cristina
University of Évora
Araújo, Miguel Bastos
University of Copenhagen
Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales
University of Évora
Data from: Divergent trophic responses to biogeographic and environmental
gradients
Dryad
dataset
2016
environment
macroinvertebrates
Phytoplankton
2016-05-25T15:25:02Z
2016-05-25T15:25:02Z
en
https://doi.org/10.1111/oik.02604
65217 bytes
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CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) Public Domain Dedication
Following environmental changes, communities disassemble and reassemble in
seemingly unpredictable ways. Whether species respond to such changes
individualistically or collectively (e.g. as functional groups) is still
unclear. To address this question, we used an extensive new dataset for
the lake communities in the Azores' archipelago to test whether: 1)
individual species respond concordantly within trophic groups; 2) trophic
groups respond concordantly to biogeographic and environmental gradients.
Spatial concordance in individual species distributions within trophic
groups was always greater than expected by chance. In contrast, trophic
groups varied non-concordantly along biogeographic and environmental
gradients revealing idiosyncratic responses to them. Whether communities
respond individualistically to environmental gradients thus depends on the
functional resolution of the data. Our study challenges the view that
modelling environmental change effects on biodiversity always requires an
individualist approach. Instead, it finds support for the longstanding
idea that communities might be modelled as a cohort if the functional
resolution is appropriate.
Distribution of aquatic organisms across freshwater along the Azores
ArchipelagoData consists of presence/absences of aquatic organisms in
freshwater lakes. The dataset consists of a single table that was
generated by combining survey data from the Springs of 2011 and
2012.matiasetal_divergent_trophic_responses.xlsx